How To Create Your Own Diet (In 5 Simple Steps)

A Macro-Focused Diet Is Low Cost & Easy To Start

A Macro-Focused Diet Has A High Chance Of Success

A Macro-Focused Diet Provides Ultimate Flexibility

1. Find out what your basal metabolic rate (BMR) is

2. Multiply Your Activity Level

3. Set A Calorie Surplus Or Calorie Deficit

4. Set Your Macro Ratio

5. Weigh Your Food In Grams

If you had told me ten years ago that I could get in shape by being in the gym less than 5 days a week, create my own meal plans with foods I enjoy, and get better results than the plans offered on bodybuilding.com, I would have laughed in your face.

I’ve always been one to want the exact formula, recipe, or plan for a way of doing things, and early in my fitness journey, there was no shortage of ‘perfect’ plans to get the exact body I wanted.

It’s amusing to look back on now, because almost all of the bodybuilding.com programs followed the same formula: a list of exercises to do, a list of supplements to buy, and a tiny section on ‘nutrition’, which was usually a short blurb circling back to the supplements you needed to buy.

I didn’t understand that the fitness industry was heavily monetized, even at that point, and that the main business was pushing people to buy as many supplements as possible while centering attention on exercise as the foundation for your success.

That method is completely backwards, and it’s the reason that I worked so hard, chasing success but not quite achieving it.

I fully believe that a basic understanding of macronutrients, and a macro-focused diet, is the best model for most people to achieve the success they want. Not only that, but it’s a springboard (or gateway drug, if you will) to applying other advanced strategies depending on what your goals are.

Understanding macronutrients gives you the easiest, low-cost solution to get started.

Most plans require both a gym membership (for the equipment) and a plethora of supplements (for the ‘nutrition’) as the backbone of the entire regimen.

And let me tell you, margins on supplements are huge for businesses. The protein powder that you buy for $60-$70 dollars costs them maybe $20 dollars to produce on the high end. I was spending about $300-$400 a month on protein powder, pre-workout caffeine supplements, creatine, and amino recovery powders. And there are hundreds of other products that I could’ve added to that if I was willing to spend more.

Add on the monthly gym membership (not counting the signup fee), and you’re looking at anywhere from $200-$500 a month. That’s not factoring in the amount of food they want you to eat and the 5+ meals a day they want you to make.

With macros, you only need two tools:

A food scale (mine cost $15 dollars on Amazon)
A weight scale (again, $10-$20 off Amazon)

And the foods you eat should be the ones that fit your goals and macro ratios. You don’t need 5 meals a day or to eat 100% clean.

Understanding macronutrients allows you to choose a flexible diet style that better aligns with your overall goals.

If you’re a cross fitter or bodybuilder that wants a carb-fueled body for HIIT training or heavy exercise, you can program your macros to reflect that desire.

If you’re a weekend warrior dad that wants abs for the summer, you can program a more keto or carnivore low-carb, high-protein focus macro ratio that will help you slim down fast while keeping your lean muscle intact.

Because of this level of personalization, you won’t have to follow a ‘clean eating’ plan of chicken and broccoli, and then quit half-way through because it’s unbearable to continue. Personalization is a key feature of macros and a reversal of the ‘cookie-cutter’ approach that so many fitness coaches try to do.

The best diet in the world is useless if you can’t stick to it, and with macros, you can eat the type of foods that you actually find palatable for the long term.

Understanding macronutrients gives you flexibility that other meal plans can’t.

With macronutrients, you might chance your macro ratios/numbers every week depending on your goal, or on a monthly basis. While most other plans, you have to stick to that specific meal plan for a set amount of time without changing it.

Your body and goals are different than the person that wrote the original plan. And your circumstances change often, sometimes on a daily basis. As a younger trainer, I would build 12 to 26 week exercise programs for clients before they had even started, hoping that an illness, injury, or other life circumstance wouldn’t get in the way before we were finished. That’s unrealistic, especially with nutrition.

Macros allows you to adjust your nutrition on the fly, for whatever circumstance comes your way.

Let’s say you’re traveling on business – you’ll be sitting often, flying often, without opportunities for a gym, or without opportunities for your own home-cooked meals. What’s the solution?

With a standard exercise plan, you might have to start over once your life gets back to normal. But with macros, you could do a number of different things like:

Introduce a calorie-restriction tool, like intermittent fasting, and adjust macros off that
Lower calorie intake, but pushing your protein ratio higher to keep your lean muscle and not add fat during your trip
Push protein and fat levels high, eliminate carbs, and focus on a leaner approach to eating until you get back

Whatever your circumstance or need is, you have an answer with a simple switch of your macro numbers and calorie intake.

Now that we know why macros can be so useful to our fitness journey, let’s get into actually BUILDING our diet out.

Your BMR is the amount of calories you normally burn per day at rest. You can do this manually or with the help of a macro calculator. Use the formula below to calculate this manually:

For men: 66.47 + (6.24 × in pounds) + (12.7 × height in inches) − (6.75 × age in years)

For women: 65.51 + (4.35 × weight in pounds) + (4.7 × height in inches) – (4.7 × age in years)

Here’s my activity modifiers that I use for Macrolab’s Ultimate Macro Tracker.

So, you take your BMR number from step 1 and multiply it by your activity level.

For example, mine would be: 66.47 + (1,185.6) + (895.35) – (256.5) * 1.5 = A 1,760 estimated basal metabolic rate

Congrats! Now you know your estimated daily calorie requirement. Now, we can adjust for our goals.

If you want to get bigger and make it easier to put on more muscle mass, you want a slight calorie surplus. So for my example, I’d add another 200 calories and round up to 2,000.

If you want to get leaner and lose weight, you want a slight calorie deficit. So for my example, I’d remove 200 calories and round down to 1,500 calories.

Diet	Protein	Carbs	Fats
Balanced	30%	35%	35%
High Protein	40%	30%	30%
Low Carb	25%	10%	65%
Low Fat	30%	50%	20%
Keto	20%	5%	75%
Carnivore	40%	0%	60%

Here’s the table from my macro tracker. These are the commonly accepted ratio numbers for most diet systems, but obviously with macros, you can adjust them as needed.

For most clients, I’ll start with a balanced approach, and then adjust into a higher protein, lower carb (or even keto/carnivore) for fat loss and weight loss goals. I’d recommend a balanced or high protein for a mass gaining approach.

Sedentary (little or no exercise and desk job)

Lightly Active (desk job & light exercise 1-3 days a week)

Moderately Active (active daily life & exercise 3-5 days a week)

Very Active (Physically lifestyle & exercise/sports 5-6 days a week)

Extremely Active (Hard daily exercise or sports and physical job)

Now, we head into the kitchen. With your foods, you’re going to weigh in grams because its a universal measurement that can be easily found in just about any scale. And since protein and carbs equal 4 calories per gram, and fats provide 9 calories per gram, you can easily calculate what your macro numbers should be within your target calorie goal.

For example, let’s say our calorie target was 2,000 a day, and we’re going to start out with a balanced macro ratio of 30% protein, 35% carbs, and 35% fats.

Protein = (2000 * .30) / 4 = 150 grams

Carbs = (2000 * .35) / 4 = 175 grams

Fats = (2000 * .35) / 9 = 77 grams

Now you have your starting ranges, and you can adjust from there. I always recommend clients calculate their protein and fat needs first, and use the remaining calories for carbs (unless you’re going to do keto or carnivore).

Like I stated previously, I fully believe that a basic understanding of macronutrients, and a macro-focused diet, is the best model for most people to achieve the success they want. Use it as a springboard, adjust, manipulate, and modify to your heart’s content for whatever fitness goal you want to achieve from there.

All it takes is about 5 minutes and simple math to get your initial plan. However, if you want an even easier process, you can use MyFitnessPal or my Ultimate Macro Tracker spreadsheet, to have your macros and calories automatically adjusted.